UNIQUE PROJECTS

Bard University – New York City Project

Bard High School – Early College was an initiative by the NewYork Education Department to address the needs of exceptionally talented students in the public school system. The initiative was to build a new school in which the school years 11 & 12 were recognized as 1st & 2nd year university. It was also intended for this School/University to be genuinely multicultural (30+ nationalities). University professors and lectures were brought in to teach, while students applied from all over the state. It effectively became a high school that was a university.

Mark Dobson’s role was to establish a culture of ownership among the students, a connective sense of harmony and to have students make the mental shift from high school to university.

The role also included:

• Create a culture free of guns and violence.
• Create a culture where study was a proffered social activity.
• Design an anti-date-rape program that was preventative rather than curative of the ‘Date Rape’ issue.
• Design study strategies to bridge the gap between high school and university needs.
• Set up all the 27 school sports and clubs so that they were lead and driven by the student.
• Interviewing and hiring extra curricular staff.

These task were all successfully achieved however an added role became clear when the 250 students and staff witnessed the Twin Towers destroyed on September 11. When chaos broke out Mark was the only person on staff with the skills and experience to control the situation and facilitate workshops through the day and the following weeks.

The entire Bard project was followed and reported on by the New York Times.

Click here for a New York Times Article.

Navajo Indian Exchange Program

In 1997 The Interlocken Centre For Experiential Education was employed to lead an intercultural exchange program, taking 40 inner-city underprivileged African-American students onto a Navajo Indian reservation for three weeks.

This program was lead by Apache Indian Henry Salcido, Innate Solutions Director Mark Dobson and 60 Minutes journalist Andy Taylor. The task was particularly difficult with the massive variance in cultures. However it was a massive success and later both Mark and Andy were offered positions as the first directors of the now famous Seeds for Peace – International Peace Camp. (Both declined to remain close to family.)

Port Keats Aboriginal Community

During 1995 Innate Solutions was approached to lead youth programs on the remote aboriginal community of Port Keats. The local government had decided to combat the on going problem of destructive behaviour by teens during their school holidays by making high levels of activity available. Mark Dobson and his team designed and facilitated these programs to meet the interests of the community.

The success of this three month project depended upon the speed at which Mark and his team could learn the local culture and how to operate successfully in it. The team was exposed to a community littered with substance abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence and tribal fighting. On December 27th the team was evacuated under gunfire when a tribal war broke out. They returned 4 days later to continue their work.